Entertainment

Saudi Women's Driving Campaign Launches Facebook Ads

Saudi Arabian women's rights activists, looking to overturn the kingdom's ban on female drivers, have added a new social layer to their movement by launching Facebook ads about their Subaru campaign.

The Saudi Women for Driving released the series of advertisements to promote a Change.org petition that asks automobile company Subaru to pull out of Saudi Arabia until the driving ban is overturned. The "Stop Subaru in Saudi" ads (pictured above) say, "Subaru must show their values and stop selling cars in Saudi Arabia, where women aren't allowed to drive." The petition itself, which launched last week, points out that the company sponsors women-centric events, including surf festivals and the U.S. Women's Triathlon Series. "But while Subaru is marketed heavily at women, your company is simultaneously making millions selling cars in the only country on earth where women aren't allowed to drive," the petition says.

The women's driving coalition has also produced a series of t-shirts, fliers, bumper stickers and ribbons meant to encourage other Saudi women to exercise their right to drive. The group plans to distribute the items quietly throughout Saudi cities, and it has also uploaded a T-shirt design for anyone to download. The design (below) says, "Yes to women driving" in Arabic.

The driving campaign continues after five Saudi women driving in the city of Jeddah were arrested Tuesday. These were the first arrests reported after Saudi women began driving on June 17, the day the Women2Drive campaign — which spread through social media sites like Facebook and Twitter — called for Saudi women to get behind the wheel. It appears at least four of the women, who had been traveling in one car, have been released, though details of their case are still not fully confirmed. The whereabouts of the fifth woman, who was arrested separately, may still be unknown. An email from Benjamin Joffe-Walt, human rights editor at Change.org, says, "We assume that if this woman were still in custody that her family would have contacted local media."

Though no written laws prevent Saudi women from driving, clerical rulings — following Wahabism, a strict form of Islam — have been interpreted as a ban typically enforced by religious police. Rumors about punishments for female drivers, as well as rumors about King Abdullah deciding to overturn the ban, have swirled since Saudi women began driving, but none have proven true so far.

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